REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT
AT DSCC RECEPTION
Colony Hotel
Palm Beach, Florida

6:55 P.M. EDT

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you. Thank you very much.

Thank you very much. I am so happy to be here. All of you know I
love Florida. A good portion of my wife's family has lived down here
for the last 15 years and more. I got my start in Florida twice, once
in December of 1991 -- everyone knows about that -- when the Florida
straw poll came out with a majority for me against six opponents and got
me started, and I'm very grateful for that. But once, maybe only one
person in this room remembers, and that was in early 1981 when I had the
distinction of being the youngest former governor in the history of
America. When I was defeated in the Reagan landslide of 1980, Bob
Graham still invited me to come speak to the Florida Democratic
Convention to explain how it was that I got my brains beat out in the
hope that others could avoid a similar fate. (Laughter.) I have never
forgotten it, never stopped feeling indebted. And Bob asked me back
three more times after that, and I think that had a lot to do with what
happened in 1991, so I'm very grateful to him.

I'm grateful that both Bob and Adele and Bill and Grace Nelson have
been friends of Hillary's and friends of mine for a very long time now.
And Bill and Grace and their children have spent the night in the White
House. And Bill was making fun of me because his daughter used to call
Chelsea, and from time to time I, like every father of a teenage
daughter, I was the answering service. The presidency doesn't alleviate
some responsibilities in life.

We've had a great relationship, all of us, all six of us have now
for such a long time, and I'm so honored that Bill is running for the
Senate, so grateful.

I want to just -- I'll be brief tonight because I know I'm
preaching to the saved here. But Florida is very important. We have to
win the Senate race and you have to carry it for the Vice President, and
you can. And I believe in 1996, early on election night, when I saw that
we had carried Florida, I knew the election was over. And in 2000,
early on election night, if the polls show we have carried Florida, the
election is over. (Applause.)

And I want you to understand that. I have -- Al Gore and I have
spent a lot of time in Florida over the last seven-and-a-half years. We
worked with many of the people here in South Florida to save the
Everglades, to bring the Southern Command here from Panama, to bring the
Summit of the Americas here, to work to expand trade. We just passed
the Caribbean Basin Trade bill which will be very good for southern
Florida. And I can't thank Bob Graham enough for the help and support
and wise counsel he's given me over these entire two terms.

But here's what I want you to think about. What about everybody
who's not here tonight? Do you believe that everyone you know who is a
friend of yours knows what this election is about? Do you believe that
everyone you know has a clear idea about what the differences are
between Bill and his opponent, between the Vice President and Governor
Bush and Mr. Cheney? Do you believe that? You know it's not true,
don't you? They don't. Why is that and what are we going to do about
it?

There are three things you need to know about this election. One
is, it is a very big election. It is every bit as important, maybe over
the long run of our life more important than the election in 1992. I'll
come back to why. Two, there are profound differences between the two
candidates for president, between the candidates for Senate and the
House, differences that will have real consequences for how we live
together in the years ahead. And, three, only the Democrats want you

to know what the differences are. (Laughter.) Now, what does that tell
you about who you ought to vote for?

What do I mean by that? First, it's a big election because we have
an unprecedented moment of prosperity and it's not just economics.
Crime is down, welfare is down, teen pregnancy is down, people are
working together and dealing with each other as never before. We are a
more just society than we were. Child poverty is down, minority
unemployment the lowest ever recorded, female unemployment the lowest in
40 years, poverty among single-parent households the lowest in 46 years.
This is a more just society. And we are more full of confidence.

Moreover, we have no crippling domestic crisis or foreign threat.
So it's a big election because we have a chance, because of our
prosperity, to build the future of our dreams for our children. But
that's not automatic. That requires that instead of taking a relaxed
view and sort of wandering through the election and wandering through
the next couple of years, we have to say, hey, we might not ever have a
chance like this again; we've got to seize the big opportunities and
take on the big challenges that are out there.

And there are some big ones out there. You know them in Florida
and I'll just give you two of the biggest that you experience here to a
greater degree than almost any other state. Number one, we've got the
largest and most diverse group of students in our schools in history and
they're not all getting a world-class education yet. Number two, we're
living longer than ever before. If you live to be 65, your life
expectancy is almost 83 now. And when all the baby boomers retire,
there will only be about two people working for every one person drawing
Social Security. We have to lengthen the life of Social Security, we
have to lengthen the life of Medicare and we have to add a prescription
drug benefit to the Medicare program. (Applause.)

And I might say, nobody has worked harder or more effectively to
that end than Bob Graham. And everybody in Florida ought to know it and
ought to be grateful for it. (Applause.)

Now, there are the challenges of the future: Climate change. We
worked so hard to save the Everglades. If we don't turn this global
warming around, in 30 years a lot of it will be under water.

We've now sequenced the human genome. That's great. There are
going to be unbelievable medical discoveries made. And pretty soon
young women will bring their children home from the hospital with a
little gene map, and before you know it, there are kids in this room
whose children will have a life expectancy of 90 years or more when
they're born. But do you think someone should be able to use your gene
map to deny you a job, a promotion, a raise or health insurance? I
don't think so. We need someone in the White House and people in the
Congress who understand science and technology.

The Internet revolution. People made fun of Al Gore over who
invented the Internet, but he sponsored the legislation, almost 20 years
ago, that took the Internet from being the private province of
physicists and people involved in defense work to sweeping the world.
And if it hadn't been for him, we wouldn't have gotten the e-rate and
the telecommunications bill four years ago, which guarantees that every
school, no matter how poor, can afford to have computers for their kids
and be part of the Internet.

Now, there are big challenges out there. The outcome of this
election will depend upon whether the American people believe what I
just said, that it's a big election with big challenges and not a time
to lay down and relax. You can just book it. When this is over, you
read the election analyses the week after the election in November and
you remember what I told you tonight. The outcome of the election will
depend upon what the American people believe the election is about,
number one, and, number two, whether they understand the differences.

On our side, we've got people like the Vice President and people
like Bill Nelson, who did more with that insurance commissioner's job
than anybody ever has, stopping fraud against seniors -- (applause) --
enrolling children in the Children's Health Insurance Program, people
who want to build on the progress of the last eight years to make the
changes of the future.

On their side, they've got their nominees for president and vice
president and others, who basically tell us that these are the best of
times, that we're all going to have harmony and compassion and get along
together, and the surplus that we've accumulated -- that we're supposed
to accumulate over the next 10 years -- is your money and they're going
to give it back to you. And otherwise, they're kind of blurring the
differences.

Bill's talking about how moderate his opponent sounds now. They're
not bragging about shutting the government down twice anymore, or trying
to shut the Department of Education down, or having the biggest Medicare
and education and environmental cuts in history. You never hear them
talking about it anymore. Gone is the harsh rhetoric and the mean words
of 1992 through 1999. Even the mean words of the 2000 primary against
Senator McCain, that's all gone now. What are you to make of that?
It's a very appealing package.

The first thing I want you to know is I don't think this should be
a mean election. I think we should say on the front end, we think our
opponents are good, patriotic people, that they love their children and
they love their country. But they have honest differences. And this
pretty package that they have presented is one they hope nobody will
open until Christmas, and certainly not before the November election.
But there are real differences and we want you to know what they are.
And I'll just mention two or three tonight, but I want you to remember
this because you've got to talk to people.

All these news stories that I've read say people don't know if
there is any difference between the Democrats and Republicans, between
our nominees for president on economic policy. There was a huge article
in the press last week surveying lots and lots of suburban women who
care a lot about gun safety and they asked -- the Vice President was
ahead like six points in this poll among women who cared about this
issue -- then the person doing the poll, who doesn't work for either
campaign, simply read their positions and the numbers went from 45 to
39, to 57 to 29. So you can understand why they wouldn't want you to
know what the real differences, are but you have to do that.

Let me just mention one or two. One, on the economy. Here's our
position. Our position is the American people should get a tax cut, but
it ought to be one we can afford, because we still have to invest in
education and health care and science and technology in providing for
the future -- number one; number two, because we still have to lengthen
the life of Medicare and Social Security to get past the baby boomers'
retirement, and we've got to provide that drug benefit; and, number
three, we've still got to keep paying down this debt and get this
country out of debt to keep interest rates low so the economy will keep
going.

Now, we have tax cuts that we admit, they're only about 25 percent,
30 percent of what theirs are. But they do more good for 80 percent of
the people -- for sending a kid to college, for long-term care, for
child care, for retirement savings, for alleviating the marriage
penalty. Eighty percent of the people or more are better off under
ours. Moreover, because we continue to pay down the debt and they
can't, interest rates will be at least a percent lower. Do you know
what that's worth in tax cuts over a decade --$250 billion in lower home
mortgages, $30 billion in lower car payments, $15 billion in lower
college loan payments.

Now, that took me a while to say, didn't it? Theirs is so much
easier. Hey, this surplus is your money and we're going to give it back
to you. And that's what they do. If you take the tax cuts they've
passed in the last year plus the ones that are in their platform that
their nominee ran on, it takes up the whole surplus, the whole projected
surplus and then some. Not a penny even for their own spending
promises.

Now, quite apart from the obvious problems, like how we spend 25
percent as much and give 80 percent of the people more, there is this --
it is a projected surplus, projected. Did you ever get one of those
letters in the mail from Publisher's Clearinghouse? Ed McMahon sends
you a letter saying, "You may have won $10 million." Well, if you went
out the next day and spent the $10 million, you should vote for them.
But if not, you ought to stick with us to keep this prosperity going.
(Laughter and applause.) Now, this is a big issue. No way to paper
this over. This is a huge, gaping difference.

Secondly, on health care, we're for a patients' bill of rights,
we'refor investing -- I mean, a real one that means something. We're
for investing whatever it takes -- and it's not that much money -- to
lengthen the life of Medicare and to add this Medicare prescription drug
benefit. We're for -- (applause) -- we're for a not particularly costly
tax break to let people between the ages of 55 and 65 buy into Medicare
if they lose their health insurance. (Applause.) And we're for letting
the parents of these -- the low-income parents of these kids that are in
our Children's Health Insurance Program buy into the program if they
don't have insurance.

Now, what's their program? They answer no to all these -- no, no,
no, no. And their Medicare drug program basically says that they'll
help you if you're up to 150 percent of the poverty line, but not if
you're over,and you've got to buy private insurance. What's the problem
with that?

The insurance companies, after all the fights we've had together --
against each other over health care, I've got to brag on the health
insurance companies. I want to brag on them. They have been up front
and honest. They say, this is a bad idea. You cannot offer a
stand-alone drug policy that anyone will buy. Nevada passed a plan just
like the ones the Republicans are backing and not a single, solitary
insurance company has offered drug coverage under it because they don't
want to be labeled frauds.

Now, why do they do it? Because the drug companies don't want us
to buy all these drugs for seniors. Now, that seems counter-intuitive.
Normally, if you're in business, you want to sell as much as you can.
But they fear that because we'll be buying a lot, we'll have a lot of
bargaining power and it will drive the price down, and people will only
have to pay 25 percent more than they pay in every other country for
American drugs. I just don't think it's a good reason. But it's a huge
difference.

In education, we're for higher standards, requirements to turn
around failing schools or shut them down, more teachers in the schools,
more money for teacher training, more money for building or modernizing
schools. Florida needs that bad, right? That's what we're for.
(Applause.) They're for block grants and vouchers. That's what their
program is.

In crime, we're for more police and closing the gun show loophole
in the Brady Bill, right? (Applause.) They have never supported the
police program, even though it's given us the lowest crime rate in 25
years -- never. And in the previous administration the President vetoed
the Brady Bill. Now, this group of people are against closing the gun
show loophole. Their answer is, more people carrying concealed weapons,
even in their houses of worship. Now that's not demagoguery, those are
facts. That's their answer.

So the point I'm trying to make is you get to make a choice. And
speaking of choice, that may be the biggest consequence of all. The
next president will appoint two to four members of the Supreme Court,
which is why it's important who's in the Senate because they have to
confirm them. Al Gore is pro-choice and mainstream on basically
preserving individual liberties and civil rights. And our judges are
the most diverse group in history, but they have the highest ratings of
the American Bar Association in 40 years. So they are confident,
mainstream and diverse.

Both their candidates on the national ticket are against the Rowe
v. Wade decision, and their nominee says his favorite judges are
Justices Thomas and Scalia, the two most conservative on the Court.
Those are his favorites.

Now, you have to -- these are honorable people. I'll say again,
they will do what they believe. How can you -- you don't expect people
to get elected president and not do what they believe. You have to
assume that you can trust them to follow their conscience and their
lifelong positions.

Now, there won't be any talk about it probably this week, but this
is a huge deal. The composition of the Supreme Court will change. And
that Court will shape America well beyond the term of the next
president, and this is a consequence. So what you have to tell your
friends and neighbors is, look, these are just four I've given you, but
if you look at -- or five -- education, health care, the economy, crime
and choice. Those are five. We could talk about the environment, I
could give you lots of other issues, but you get the point.

Elections are choices that have consequences and people must live
with the consequences. So it is very important that they understand the
choice. The American people always get it right if they have enough
time and enough information. That's what you've got to believe.
Otherwise, if they didn't nearly always get it right, we wouldn't be
around here after 220 years.

So I say to you, this is a profoundly important election. There
are big differences. You have to make sure people understand what their
choices are. You don't have to say a bad word about our opponents. You
can say that you, too, are sick of 20 years of negative politics, of
trying to convince people that your opponent is just one step above a
car thief. I know a little something about it; I don't like it very
much.

But that cannot be permitted to obscure the differences. And I'll
just say this in closing. I've lived long enough now to know that
nothing stays the same forever. In my lifetime, we never had a chance
like this. We can literally build the future of our dreams for our
children. We can also be a more positive force around the world for
peace and freedom and security and prosperity. But we can only do it if
we make the right choices.

I want to say just one word about the Vice President. One of the
things that bothers me is that the polls seem to say he gets no credit
for our economic policy. Before I took office, we spent two months
debating economic policy. You may remember I had a big national
economic summit. When we had to decide whether we were going to make
the brutally tough decisions to get that deficit down, Al Gore was the
first one to say we've got to do it, let's just take the lumps and go
on. When he cast the deciding vote on the economic plan of 1993,
without which we could not have done any of the things we've enjoyed
since, he acted on his conviction.

He was instrumental in the Telecommunications Act, which had a lot
to do with creating hundreds of thousands of high-wage jobs. He
supported all my trade initiatives. He has been there, an integral
member of our economic team. He understands the future. That's
important. You want a president who understands the future.

And, finally, let me say the most important thing of all to me is
he wants to take us all along for the ride. He is for a minimum wage;
they are not. He is for employment nondiscrimination legislation; they
are not. He is for hate crimes legislation, and their leadership isn't
because it also extends protection to gays. And I think that we need to
be building an America where everybody that works hard plays by the
rules and doesn't get in anybody else's way in a defensive way ought to
be part of our America. That's what we think.

Now, people are free to think something else. But no one should be
confused about the consequences. Now, I'm telling you, in my lifetime
we've never had a chance like this. And I feel so good -- in spite of
all the good things that have happened in America in the last seven
years, I feel like we've been turning an ocean liner around in the ocean
and now it's headed in the right way and it's about to become a
speedboat. All the best stuff is still out there, if we make the right
choice. Bill Nelson is the right choice, and so is Al Gore.